I have a question regarding use of half-forms and ligatures in devanagari when writing Pali. Looking at Tipitaka.org's devanagari version, e.g. http://www.tipitaka.org/deva/cscd/vin01m.mul0.xml, I notice that for a number of consonant clusters (but not all) the text includes zero-width joiners (U+200D) in order to show the consonant clusters with half-forms instead of full ligatures. For example, "verañjakaṇḍaṃ" is written as वेरञ्‍जकण्डं instead of वेरञ्जकण्डं. The addition of the zero-width joiner (U+200D) causes the ञ to be shown as a half-form ञ्‍ instead of a full ligature with ज, i.e. ञ्ज. The same is true for ल्‍ल instead of ल्ल and न्‍न instead of न्न. At the same time, some clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, which at least with the font I have (Sanskrit 2003) render differently than they would with a zero-width joiner (i.e. त्‍त and ब्‍र). Could anyone tell me, in whatever Pali materials printed in Devanagari you have, which consonant clusters use full ligatures and which use half-forms? Is it the same pattern as Tipitaka.org? Is this kind of thing simply up to the publisher, or is there some kind of convention for Pali writing in Devanagari for which clusters use full ligatures? Thanks for your help!

tiltbillings wrote:Ven Dhammanando and Ven Paññāsikhara and Kåre may be the ones that could help you with this.

Not me, sorry! Though I understand the situation and question, I really don't have enough experience with Devanagari for Pali to add much of any use.

My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.

echalon wrote:I have a question regarding use of half-forms and ligatures in devanagari when writing Pali. Looking at Tipitaka.org's devanagari version, e.g. http://www.tipitaka.org/deva/cscd/vin01m.mul0.xml, I notice that for a number of consonant clusters (but not all) the text includes zero-width joiners (U+200D) in order to show the consonant clusters with half-forms instead of full ligatures. For example, "verañjakaṇḍaṃ" is written as वेरञ्‍जकण्डं instead of वेरञ्जकण्डं. The addition of the zero-width joiner (U+200D) causes the ञ to be shown as a half-form ञ्‍ instead of a full ligature with ज, i.e. ञ्ज. The same is true for ल्‍ल instead of ल्ल and न्‍न instead of न्न. At the same time, some clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, which at least with the font I have (Sanskrit 2003) render differently than they would with a zero-width joiner (i.e. त्‍त and ब्‍र). Could anyone tell me, in whatever Pali materials printed in Devanagari you have, which consonant clusters use full ligatures and which use half-forms? Is it the same pattern as Tipitaka.org? Is this kind of thing simply up to the publisher, or is there some kind of convention for Pali writing in Devanagari for which clusters use full ligatures? Thanks for your help!

I'm sorry, but I do not quite understand the question. In most above cases, where you ask about "x instead of x" the two are non-distinguishable on my screen. I only see a difference in your last example. I do not have much printed matter in Pali-Devanagari, but at least in "Bauddhagamarthasamgraha", a good anthology of passages from Buddhist canonical texts in Sanskrit and Pali, printed in Devanagari, I find that clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, and not like this: त्‍त and ब्‍र.

Kare wrote:I'm sorry, but I do not quite understand the question. In most above cases, where you ask about "x instead of x" the two are non-distinguishable on my screen. I only see a difference in your last example. I do not have much printed matter in Pali-Devanagari, but at least in "Bauddhagamarthasamgraha", a good anthology of passages from Buddhist canonical texts in Sanskrit and Pali, printed in Devanagari, I find that clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, and not like this: त्‍त and ब्‍र.

If you can't see any difference between the example pairs, you need a font which supports more ligatures. You can try Chandas from http://www.sanskritweb.net/cakram/, which claims to have "the largest ligature set", and certainly has a great many. I would very much appreciate it if you could try out this font and then tell me what kind of ligatures you find in your Bauddhagamarthasamgraha.

Kare wrote:I'm sorry, but I do not quite understand the question. In most above cases, where you ask about "x instead of x" the two are non-distinguishable on my screen. I only see a difference in your last example. I do not have much printed matter in Pali-Devanagari, but at least in "Bauddhagamarthasamgraha", a good anthology of passages from Buddhist canonical texts in Sanskrit and Pali, printed in Devanagari, I find that clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, and not like this: त्‍त and ब्‍र.

If you can't see any difference between the example pairs, you need a font which supports more ligatures. You can try Chandas from http://www.sanskritweb.net/cakram/, which claims to have "the largest ligature set", and certainly has a great many. I would very much appreciate it if you could try out this font and then tell me what kind of ligatures you find in your Bauddhagamarthasamgraha.

I'll try that. But I see on that site that there are two different styles - northern and southern. Which one are you using?

Kare wrote:I'll try that. But I see on that site that there are two different styles - northern and southern. Which one are you using?

I'm using Chandas, the southern style. I'm not sure which one is more common, so I suppose just compare the two images (they are the same text in the two styles) and choose the one you are more used to. In any case, it shouldn't change the examples significantly.

On a side note, what style does that devanagari text of yours use? Appparently you can look at अ, ण, and झ to distinguish the two styles.

Kare wrote:I'll try that. But I see on that site that there are two different styles - northern and southern. Which one are you using?

I'm using Chandas, the southern style. I'm not sure which one is more common, so I suppose just compare the two images (they are the same text in the two styles) and choose the one you are more used to. In any case, it shouldn't change the examples significantly.

On a side note, what style does that devanagari text of yours use? Appparently you can look at अ, ण, and झ to distinguish the two styles.

Yes, I see that the book I mentioned, and also some other Devanagari Pali books in my bookshelf, is printed in the southern style. I'll be back later after downloading and installing the font.

echalon wrote:I have a question regarding use of half-forms and ligatures in devanagari when writing Pali. Looking at Tipitaka.org's devanagari version, e.g. http://www.tipitaka.org/deva/cscd/vin01m.mul0.xml, I notice that for a number of consonant clusters (but not all) the text includes zero-width joiners (U+200D) in order to show the consonant clusters with half-forms instead of full ligatures. For example, "verañjakaṇḍaṃ" is written as वेरञ्‍जकण्डं instead of वेरञ्जकण्डं. The addition of the zero-width joiner (U+200D) causes the ञ to be shown as a half-form ञ्‍ instead of a full ligature with ज, i.e. ञ्ज. The same is true for ल्‍ल instead of ल्ल and न्‍न instead of न्न. At the same time, some clusters are written with full ligatures, e.g. त्त and ब्र, which at least with the font I have (Sanskrit 2003) render differently than they would with a zero-width joiner (i.e. त्‍त and ब्‍र). Could anyone tell me, in whatever Pali materials printed in Devanagari you have, which consonant clusters use full ligatures and which use half-forms? Is it the same pattern as Tipitaka.org? Is this kind of thing simply up to the publisher, or is there some kind of convention for Pali writing in Devanagari for which clusters use full ligatures? Thanks for your help!

Ok, so... there are a couple issues here. First, when speaking of fonts, using half-ligatures is just plain easier for the person/people creating the font. And, for some things, it's much easier to use half-ligatures when, e.g., something could be transliterated into multiple scripts.

That said, full ligatures (where a full ligature exists that differs from a half ligature) seem to be the rule in most cases. If you haven't, read the itranslator manual: http://www.sanskritweb.net/itrans/itmanual2003.pdf. It lists all the full and half-ligatures, and has an appendix with ligature attestations for hindi.

Of course, if we're talking about writing pali in devanagari, what could be construed as "most accurate" could vary. There are no historically attested pali/devanagari ligatures, since pali wasn't written in devanagari. One could use sinhalese or burmese, but I don't know how well the scripts relate to devanagari in terms of conjuncts/ligatures.

When I write devanagari, I use the ligature attestations in the itrans manual. At least then I know that I'm not making up some random character in order to write a conjunct.

Kare wrote:I'll try that. But I see on that site that there are two different styles - northern and southern. Which one are you using?

I'm using Chandas, the southern style. I'm not sure which one is more common, so I suppose just compare the two images (they are the same text in the two styles) and choose the one you are more used to. In any case, it shouldn't change the examples significantly.

On a side note, what style does that devanagari text of yours use? Appparently you can look at अ, ण, and झ to distinguish the two styles.

Southern style is much more common. I occasionally see things written in the northern style script, but not often.

seanpdx wrote:Of course, if we're talking about writing pali in devanagari, what could be construed as "most accurate" could vary. There are no historically attested pali/devanagari ligatures, since pali wasn't written in devanagari. One could use sinhalese or burmese, but I don't know how well the scripts relate to devanagari in terms of conjuncts/ligatures.

Yes, of course the idea of accuracy or authenticity is not applicable at all. I would just like to know what conventions are for academia, so I can decide what ligatures I need to learn to write!

seanpdx wrote:When I write devanagari, I use the ligature attestations in the itrans manual. At least then I know that I'm not making up some random character in order to write a conjunct.

Do you mean you use the ligatures attested in hindi? Or all the ligatures they list for Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, and Marathi?

seanpdx wrote:Of course, if we're talking about writing pali in devanagari, what could be construed as "most accurate" could vary. There are no historically attested pali/devanagari ligatures, since pali wasn't written in devanagari. One could use sinhalese or burmese, but I don't know how well the scripts relate to devanagari in terms of conjuncts/ligatures.

Yes, of course the idea of accuracy or authenticity is not applicable at all. I would just like to know what conventions are for academia, so I can decide what ligatures I need to learn to write!

seanpdx wrote:When I write devanagari, I use the ligature attestations in the itrans manual. At least then I know that I'm not making up some random character in order to write a conjunct.

Do you mean you use the ligatures attested in hindi? Or all the ligatures they list for Sanskrit?

I use the attested sanskrit ligatures, with the addition of the pali-only ligatures.

seanpdx wrote:I use the attested sanskrit ligatures, with the addition of the pali-only ligatures.

What exactly is an attested sanskrit ligature? Remember, devanagari is not the "original" script for Sanskrit, either. Unless I misread it, it appeared to me like the ligatures listed in that document were simply ligatures for all the attested sanskrit, pali, etc. consonant clusters. So, that would imply that you are using ligatures for every consonant cluster where it is possible. So some of them may end up as half-forms, but you don't use a half-form where there exists a full ligature. Am I right?

I assume you don't actually look at the chart each time, as the chart is just spelling out what's already in the Sanskrit 2003 font.

In the meantime, I've attached a PDF version of my post which you should be able to view just fine.

posting.pdf

I use Win 7 and Opera, and I found that by adjusting the settings of the browser, the Devanagari in your posting are shown correctly.

Back to your original question: "Could anyone tell me, in whatever Pali materials printed in Devanagari you have, which consonant clusters use full ligatures and which use half-forms? "

To find out this could be a quite time-consuming task. Are there specific ligatures and specific words you want checked?

I also have the Dhammapada, the Abhidhammavatara and a few suttas in Devanagari. The easiest and best reference system would be the Dhammapada. Could you please search out words in the Dhammapada and then give the verses? Then it should be easy to take a look at them.

seanpdx wrote:I use the attested sanskrit ligatures, with the addition of the pali-only ligatures.

What exactly is an attested sanskrit ligature? Remember, devanagari is not the "original" script for Sanskrit, either. Unless I misread it, it appeared to me like the ligatures listed in that document were simply ligatures for all the attested sanskrit, pali, etc. consonant clusters. So, that would imply that you are using ligatures for every consonant cluster where it is possible. So some of them may end up as half-forms, but you don't use a half-form where there exists a full ligature. Am I right?

itmanual2003.pdf: Section 3.5, Ligatures of "Sanskrit 2003"

In brief, all ligatures included are attested in classical and/or vedic sanskrit. Those which are in pali or hindi, but NOT in sanskrit, are so noted. Anything not attested to in sanskrit or pali, I won't use. Which hasn't yet happened, because let's face it, if the ligature is hindi-only, the conjunct likely doesn't exist in pali. =D

You are correct in that I use full ligatures for all conjuncts, half-ligatures where a "real" full ligature doesn't exist.

echalon wrote:I assume you don't actually look at the chart each time, as the chart is just spelling out what's already in the Sanskrit 2003 font.

In brief, all ligatures included are attested in classical and/or vedic sanskrit. Those which are in pali or hindi, but NOT in sanskrit, are so noted. Anything not attested to in sanskrit or pali, I won't use. Which hasn't yet happened, because let's face it, if the ligature is hindi-only, the conjunct likely doesn't exist in pali. =D

Looking at that section, I don't see any indication of where the ligature forms themselves came from. They mention that the ligatures are based on "conjunct consonants attested by quotations from the original texts", and in the chart they indicate the frequency of the conjunct consonants within the text, but there's no mention of how those conjunct consonants are written in whatever manuscripts we have. Which in a way makes sense, since we have Sanskrit manuscripts in a lot of scripts. So at least to my reading, it seems like the fact if there was ever a certain combination of consonants (written in any script, in any form) in a Sanskrit text, this font would have a ligature for it. But which form of a ligature is used must be from some kind of tradition specific to Devanagari, rather than Sanskrit or Pali literature in general. Am I getting this all wrong? I wish I could get my hands on that German work.

Kare wrote:To find out this could be a quite time-consuming task. Are there specific ligatures and specific words you want checked?

I also have the Dhammapada, the Abhidhammavatara and a few suttas in Devanagari. The easiest and best reference system would be the Dhammapada. Could you please search out words in the Dhammapada and then give the verses? Then it should be easy to take a look at them.

Sure, I can provide a few Dhammapada examples for you to check. In the versions I'm looking at (http://www.tipitaka.org/deva/) each verse has 2 or 3 lines, and the verse numbering continues through chapters. Let me know if you need more help locating the words in question. Thanks!